Chapter One: Addy

“Bane, he’s not breathing.” Adaline Connor’s fingers moved from the man’s carotid artery and down to his chest, where a trail of blood seeped from his abdomen. She bunched up her hand and rubbed the man’s chest, praying for some reaction from the guy, but he didn’t respond to pain stimuli.

“Start compressions,” Bane said, dropping to his knees next to her to yank the non-re-breather mask out of the trauma bag. Addy laced her hands over the man’s chest and pumped.

“Come on,” she muttered. Her gloved hands soaked with crimson blood, an alarming sight for anyone else, but a familiar one for her. “Come back to us.”

“Hold it,” Bane said, and he pumped three breaths of oxygen into the man’s lungs, fingers steady on the man’s neck as he checked, hopeful, for a pulse. There was none.

“Don’t you die on us,” Addy said through clenched teeth. She continued with compressions, a bead of sweat forming on her brow, escaped strands of flyaway hairs from her braid sticking to the dampness on her neck.

One, two, three…

Bane pumped more oxygen and rechecked the man’s pulse, shaking his head at her. Trying to catch her breath, Addy pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed until she tasted copper blood on her tongue. Her compressions never wavered.

Dammit.

One, two, three…

“Addy.”

One, two, three…

“What?”

“We have a pulse.”

She jumped to her feet to pull the stretcher from the back of the ambulance, a relief so intense washing over her she felt weak at the knees. She and Bane loaded the man onto the stretcher and into the back of the ambulance. She ripped off her blood-soaked gloves and tossed them into the biohazard container, legs still weak with liberation.

“Pulse is weak and thready, but we might have a chance,” Bane said. “Drive fast.”

The drive to Harborview Medical in Seattle was a fast one. By the time they pulled into the ER bay, her sweaty handprint had marked the steering wheel, and a team of trauma nurses and physicians met them at the door, ready to jump into action.

“Male gunshot victim, approximate age late forties,” Addy said, breathless. “. This guy coded in the field, but we got a pulse back.”

“Great work, guys,” said Dr. Johnson. He clapped her on the shoulder and winked, and she beamed, proud. Any encouraging words from Harlan Johnson were gold. “We can take it from here.”

Addy and Bane watched the trauma team wheel the patient through the ER doors. She sighed, taking a seat on the bumper of the bus, and allowed her head to rest in her hands.

“Good save over there, kid,” Bane said, taking a seat next to her. “Who would have thought a young girl like you could compete with a seasoned paramedic like me?”

“Hmmm,” Addy mused. “Everyone did, I think.”

“You’re a good EMT,” Bane said. “We’ll miss you when you stop running with EMS and start working inside those hospital doors.”

“That’s not for sure yet.” She grabbed the bleach cleaning solution from the back of the ambulance and sprayed down the interior, scrubbing the drying blood from the floors and bench. “I haven’t even heard one way or the other.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself, Addy,” Bane said, collecting the dirty towels to dump them in the ER bin. “Medicine is your passion. They’d be idiots not to accept you.”

“Thanks, Bane.”

“No, problem. Now go home before the station has to pay you overtime.”